When analyzing tone, how can you distinguish the speaker's attitude from the narrator's voice?

• A. Identify indicators in diction, punctuation, and syntactic choices; consider perspective and reliability to distinguish authorial tone from narrator's voice.
• B. Assume they are always the same.
• C. Ignore the narrator and focus only on the plot.
• D. Rely on the setting to determine tone.

Answer: (A)

When analyzing tone, the key idea is to separate the attitude of the speaker or narrator from the narrator’s own voice. The best way to do this is to focus on how things are said: the diction—the exact words chosen; the punctuation and rhythm of sentences; and the kinds of syntactic choices the author makes. These elements reveal how the speaker feels and whether that feeling comes from the narrator’s personal stance or from the author’s broader perspective.

Also, consider perspective and reliability. A first‑person narrator might be biased, naïve, or playful, shaping a distinctive voice that doesn’t necessarily align with the author’s stance. By weighing who is telling the story and how much the teller can be trusted, you can distinguish the narrator’s voice from the authorial tone. If the language is sharp, ironic, or caustic in the narrator’s voice, that signals the narrator’s attitude, even if the overall commentary or the author’s attitude toward the subject is different or more nuanced.

So, look for cues in word choice, sentence structure, and punctuation to read the speaker’s attitude, then check how perspective and reliability shape that voice. That helps reveal whether you’re tracking the narrator’s tone as present in the telling or the author’s broader stance behind the narration. The other approaches miss important distinctions because tone isn’t determined by setting alone, nor by the plot in isolation, and because narrator and author can intentionally diverge in how they present the same material.